20 November: Chemicals giant Ineos announces investments up to 640 million pounds in shale gas exploration in the UK.

19 November: The US Senate does not pass the Keystone XL Pipeline Bill, which would have approved a pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to the US mid-western state of Nebraska. photo left

18 November: The US and China announce a secretly negotiated agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

5 November: 2071 opens at the Royal Court Theatre, London, a staged lecture by Chris Rapley, CBE, Professor of Climate Science at University College London, the only West End production on climate change in the year. photo left

November: ARTCOP21 announced: a cultural festival and symposium for the 21st United Nations Conference on climate change to be held in Paris from 30 November - 10 December 2015, partnered by COAL and Cape Farewell.

November: The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes its Synthesis Report, drawing together its last three reports on the physical science of climate change; its impacts on ecosystems, our food supply and how we adapt; and on solutions.

27 July: The Department for Energy and Climate Change launches the so-called '14th onshore licensing round', inviting companies to bid for the rights to explore in as-yet untouched parts of the country. It could potentially result in fracking taking place across more than half of Britain.

17 April: Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and four co-defendants found not guilty of obstructing public highway and public order offences during protests at Cuadrilla's exploratory oil drilling site in Balcombe, West Sussex, in August 2013.

13 April: The third working group of the IPCC publishes its report on the options for mitigating climate change and the underlying technological, economic and institutional requirements. Clean sources of energy will have to dominate world energy supplies by 2050 in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.

31 March: The IPCC releases its Fifth Assessment Report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, concluding that climate change is having impacts in real time: melting sea ice, thawing permafrost in the Arctic, killing coral reefs and leading to heat waves, heavy rains and mega-disasters. Further, the impacts pose a threat to global food stocks and human security, and that no one will be unaffected.

January - December 2014: Berlin's Haus der Kulturen der Welt runs the Anthropocene Project, as part of a two-year programme of events looking at the arts, culture and sciences relating to the concept of the Anthropocene. photo left

2013

8 October: Arts Admin and TippingPoint host the first Whitechapel Green Drinks, an informal networking event open to people working in the environmental and arts fields.

3 October: The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) finds that ocean acidification is at the highest level for 300 million years due to carbon emissions.

27 September: The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes the Working Group report on the Physical Science Basis, finding it 'unequivocal' that even if the world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to cross the critical threshold of 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

23 September: A Declaration on Climate Justice is issued by the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, preparing for an international climate agreement in 2015.

5 - 14 September: The World Stage Design event in Cardiff embeds 'People, Profit, Planet', a strand of performances and talks on sustainable design organised by the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

23 August: Daniel Bye's How to Occupy an Oil Rig receives the 2013 Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

16 - 21 August: In Balcombe, West Sussex, the local protest against Cuadrilla's exploratory drilling in advance of fracking is joined by No Dash for Gas: Reclaim the Power.

10 May: Reports show that the carbon dioxide levels have passed 400 parts per million, considered to be an indicator that the amount of the gas in the air is higher than it has been for at least three million years.

January: The Year of Natural Scotland sponsors 14 arts projects across every region of the country.

22 - 31 October: Hurricane Sandy travels across the Caribbean and eastern coast of the United States, hitting landfall in New York on 29 October.

October: Kieran Lynn receives the Nick Darke Award for environmental playwriting, and The Man Who Planted Trees receives the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts award for sustainable production at the Edinburgh Fringe.

May: The Brighton Festival awarded its New Writing South Best New Play award
to both Feral Theatre for Triptych, photo left, and Jonathan Brown for The Last Lunch. The award is for new writing on any theme.

May: Research in Drama Education publishes a themed issue on 'Environmentalism', edited by Deirdre Heddon and Sally Mackay.

24 February: Arts Council England Chief Executive Alan Davey announces that ACE is the first arts funding body worldwide to embed environmental sustainability into its funding agreements for National Portfolio Organisations and Major Partner Museums. Julie's Bicycle will provide the expertise. Davey's announcement is made at the TippingPoint event in Newcastle.

24 February: The Great Immensity, a play about climate change by the American theatre company The Citizens, and financed with a $750,000 (£470,000) grant by the US National Science Foundation, opens in Kansas City. Reviewers find it informative but lacking dramatic structure. photo left

14 February: The State of the Arts conference includes, for the first time, two sessions on 'Artists and Our Future Environment'.

2011

30 September: A mock Ecocide Trial in the UK Supreme Court finds fictional corporate CEO defendants guilty of two counts of Ecocide crimes relating to the Canadian Tar Sands, and not guilty on one count relating to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. photo left

29 November - 10 December: COP16, the UN Climate Change Conference takes place in Cancún, Mexico. The agreement reached, considered a fragile lifeline, acknowledges the need to keep temperature rises to 2° C, sets up a green climate fund to help poorer countries adapt and gives financial support for the preservation of forests. photo: Greenpeace activists on Cancún beach / Reuters

18 November: The National Theatre announces GREENLAND, its new documentary theatre piece about 'our changing relation with the planet, written by Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner and Jack Thorne, opening 1 February 2011.

18 November: The fourth Mediating Change panel, 'Futures: How cultural responses to climate change have altered our experience of time and place', takes place with Roger Harrabin, Professor Mike Hulme, Ruth Little, Oliver Morton and Carolyn Steele at the National Theatre Studio, London.

16 November: The Royal Court Theatre announces The Heretic, a new play by Richard Bean about a climate scientist, opening on 4 February 2011. image on left

16 November: The third Mediating Change panel, 'Anatomy: An anatomy of cultural responses to climate change', takes place with
Bergit Arends, Robert Butler, Beth Derbyshire and Charlie Kronick at the National Theatre Studio, London.

2 November: In the US mid-term elections, Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives and key committees on environment and energy. Climate sceptics among them vow to continue investigating the University of East Anglia climate scientists and to harrass the US Environmental Protection Agency.

29 October - 13 November: First TippingPoint events in Australia, in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

22 October: British Museum Director Neil MacGregor concludes 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' with the solar-powered lamp and charger as the 100th object.

12 September: 'History', the first of four Mediating Change panel discussions on cultural responses to climate change, takes place at the TippingPoint event in Oxford, with Professor Diana Liverman, Dr. Wallace Heim, Siobhan Davies, CBE, and Dr. Nigel Clark, chaired by Quentin Cooper. The series is sponsored by the
Open University and the Ashden Trust. Ashdenizen blogs here.

9 September - 1 October: The Cape Farewell Expedition to the Arctic includes the playwright Nick Drake, the playwright Mikhail Dunenkov, the theatre artist Cynthia Hopkins, the dramaturg Ruth Little and the theatre director Deborah Warner.

26 August - Jellyfish Theatre, a temporary structure built of reclaimed materials, opens in London and commissions two ecological plays, OIKOS and PROTOZOA. Ashdenizen blogs it here and here.

4 August - Earthquakes in London opens, the first play by the National Theatre about climate change. Ashdenizen blogs it here.

August: The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) awards the first CSPA Fringe Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Fringe to The Pantry Shelf, a comedy produced by Team M & M.

30 January: A workshop at Tate Modern, 'Disobedience Makes History', led by the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, ends with participants posting a banner stating 'ART NOT OIL' from the gallery windows. Actions and interventions by several groups opposed to the sponsorship by BP of the Tate and other major art institutions continues throughout the year.

25 January: Richard North posts allegations on his blog that the International Panel on Climate Change made false predictions regarding the effects of global warming on the Amazon. The 'Amazongate' accusations were taken up by other climate sceptic journalists before being discredited.

21 - 31 May: Earth Matters on Stage, a symposium on theatre and ecology, and the Ecodrama Playwrights Festival are hosted by the University of Oregon.

9 May: The first play on climate change at a major London theatre, Steve Waters's The Contingency Plan, opens at the Bush to critical acclaim. The production consists of two plays, On the Beach and Resilience. (photo left)

17 April: The US Environmental Protection Agency terms heat-trapping gases pollutants, and will regulate them for the first time.

28 March: One billion people take part in Earth Hour by switching off their lights at 8:30 p.m. to mark the beginning of UN Climate Panel's meetings.

1 March: Arcola Energy and Arcola Theatre start Green Sundays, opening the theatre on the first Sunday of each month as a meeting place for projects on arts and sustainability.

2 February: Tipping Point announces an initiative to grant four commissions of up to £30,000 each for the creation of new performances that have to do with climate change.

20 January: President Barack Obama inaugurated. "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories... And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it."

13 January: The RSA hosts the Chico Mendes Legacy Lecture, in association with the Young Vic and People's Palace Projects

2008

Barack Obama elected president of the United States. He comes to the job with an energy policy - reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050; ensuring 10% of electricity comes from renewable resources by 2012; putting plug-in hybrid cars on the road; and investing in a clean energy future. He also has an arts policy - to expand public/private school arts partnerships; create an artists corps; champion the importance of arts education; and provide health care and tax fairness for artists.

Voters in Ecuador approve a referendum on a new progressive constitution, which gives Nature the same rights as human beings.

Twenty-four major productions are listed here on the Directory, the most in any given year since 1882, the year that starts our listings.

The National Theatre and Royal Philips Electronics have teamed up on a Green Switch initiative for lighting the flytowers.

For the second consecutive year, the BBC Proms commission a choral work on climate change. Rachel Portman composed The Water Diviner's Tale and Owen Sheers wrote the libretto.

The United States Supreme Court in a groundbreaking decision rules that greenhouse gases are pollutants, opening the door to litigations against industries producing high levels of carbon emissions.

7.7.07: The Live Earth concert for a climate in crisis takes place across every continent.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces four scientifically authoritative reports confirming the human cause of global warming; warning of the impacts of climate change; and outlining the economic and lifestyle changes necessary to mitigate those impacts.

Pope Benedict, speaking to a conference on climate change at the Vatican, urges Catholics to become far greener. The Vatican plans to install more than 1,000 solar panels on the roof of Paul VI Hall.

'If there is no action before 2012, that is too late. What we do in the next 2 to 3 years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,' said Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC after the Bali Agreement to negotiate a new climate change treaty by 2009, coming into force in 2013. The Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on greenhouse gases, expires in 2012.

2006

The movie and book An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore released. Gore delivers his presentation on the emergency of climate change to the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival.

Playwright Caryl Churchill
writes a libretto about climate change for a work by Orlando Gough and his choral group, The Shout, for the Proms.

The movie Syriana, released. A political thriller about corruption in the global oil industry.

The Economist magazine reverses its sceptical position on climate change. Vanity Fair and Elle produce special 'green' editions.

The Royal Court Theatre, London, presents Hot Air, lectures by Chris Rapley CBE, Head of the British Antarctic Survey and John Schnellnhuber, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Potsdam University, who devised the climate change 'Tipping Point' map of the world. The lectures were introduced by the playwright Caryl Churchill.

Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People (first produced in 1893) is revived
by several companies, including the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, and Tara Arts, whose UK adaptation set it in 19th Century British-ruled India.

James Lovelock publishes The Revenge of Gaia
in which he warns that planetary ecosystems and human life may not survive the accelerating pace of climate change and advocates nuclear power as the best immediate option for energy production.

Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, appoints Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist , as Deputy Chair of his policy review committee on the environment.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announce that CO2 levels have reached 381ppm (parts per million)which is 100ppm above the pre-industrial average and higher than levels for the past 30 million years.

Bill McKibben writes online article, 'Imagine that. What the world needs now is art, sweet art', asking where are the plays that will register climate change in our guts and imaginations.

Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans, USA. A New Orleans resident (left) waits to be rescued. Sea surface warming caused by human actions is increasing the intensity of tropical storms.

The New Yorker publishes a three-part series, on climate change by Elizabeth Kolbert.

The third Cape Farewell expedition of artists and scientists sails to the High Arctic to study global warming.

The Royal Society of Arts and Arts Council England launch 'Arts & Ecology', a year-long series, of symposia, commissions and publications.

PLATFORM, a social practice art collective, inititates Remember Saro-Wiwa, commissioning a public art Living Memorial to mark the 10th anniversary of the execution of writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni colleagues by the Nigerian state.

2004

The movie Super Size Me released, in which film-maker Morgan Spurloch eats McDonald's fast-food meals for a month. In March, McDonald's announced that by the end of 2004, the Supersize portions will no longer be available.

The movie The Day After Tomorrow released. Hollywood disaster movie about climate change which makes no reference to US consumption of fossil fuels.

Playwright Chris Ballance is elected as the Green Party candidate to be Member of the Scottish Parliament for the South of Scotland Region.

2002

Futerra produce the film The Seasons Alter using a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to warn of climate change. Titania is played by Cherie Lunghi, Oberson by Lloyd Owen, and Helena by Keira Knightly.

Criminal Justice and Public Law Act makes a criminal offence of
'aggravated trespass'.

The Kyoto Convention, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, enters into force.

Una Chaudhuri guests edits an edition of the journal Theater on ecology and performance, which includes her seminal essay '"There Must Be a Lot of Fish in that Lake": Toward an Ecological Theater' (Vol.25:1).

PLATFORM's Still Waters, which imagined the un-burying of four tributaries of the River Thames, is among the earliest of such projects to uncover or 'daylight' a river.

1988

Global warming emerges as a public issue when NASA scientist James Hansen tells the US Congress that research indicates human beings are dangerously heating the planet, particularly through the use of fossil fuels.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Prime Minister, publishes Our Common Future defining sustainable development as ‘Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

1986

25 - 26 April: Chernobyl. The nuclear reactor in the former USSR explodes.

Release of The China Syndrome, a film about a television reporter and cameraman investigating a routine story at a local nuclear power plant who, with a whistleblower, expose a cover-up of failed safety procedures. The film was released 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.